Portable MP3 Players are one of the coolest and most popular technical products right now. It’s not surprising as their advantages over walkmans and portable CD players are numerous. The size of portable MP3 players is smaller so it makes them a lot easier to take with you whether you listen to music while excersising or when you sit in the public transport as I do. 🙂
The amount of music you can put on a solid portable MP3 player is also way more than on a walkman or a CD player as you can listen to MP3 files that you can easily transfer form you computer and they’re a lot smaller in size than regular music files you listen to. The smaller the files the more music you can listen to.
While benefits of a portable MP3 players are obvious there are also a lot of factors to take into account when you need to decide what MP3 player to buy. That is why I made this page so you can make a better buy. I’ve worked with portable MP3 players since they were first released and now when the prices have dramatically fallen I believe you can buy a great MP3 player at an affordable price.
When buying a portable MP3 player you need to think about how much storage / memory it has, what size is it, how does it connect to your computer and more. Read my portable mp3 player buying guide and after going through the steps and figuring out what kind of MP3 player you need read my reviews. Hope this web site will be of help to you when buying a portable MP3 player.
There are a lot of articles on this web site but to get started – get to know the basics first and remember the more educated you get the better buy you’ll be able to find when searching for the MP3 players that suits You and Your needs perfectly.
MP3 Player – Buying Guide
What kind of MP3 Player do you need?
When you’ve decided you need to buy a portable MP3 player you than need to think about how you’re going to use your MP3 player. Are you going to be working out while listening to your favorite band or are you going to be listening to music while sitting on the bus to your job?
MP3 Player Connections
What kind of connection you use to transfer your MP3 files to your MP3 player is a very important factor you need to take into account when deciding what mP3 player you should buy. There are four kinds of connections – serial, parallel, Universal Serial Bus (USB) and FireWire.
MP3 Player Storage
The most important thing to consider when buying a portable MP3 player is storage. What kind of memory a MP3 player uses is vital to how you’re going to be using it and how much music you can listen to. Portable MP3 player storage can utilize internal memory cards (much as digital cameras) as FLash, hard drives to store music and CDs.
MP3 Player Extras
There are a lot of extra features you can look out for when buying a portable MP3 player. Based on what and how you’re going to be using your MP3 player you might find some of these features extremely helpful and important.
What kind of MP3 Player do you need?
When you’ve decided you need to buy a portable MP3 player you than need to think about how you’re going to use your MP3 player. Are you going to be working out while listening to your favorite band or are you going to be listening to music while sitting on the bus to your job?
Lets go through different kinds on portable MP3 players available on the market right now.
Flash memory-based MP3 Players
Portable memory based MP3 players are small and extremely light so they’re great to have with you when jogging or lifting weight. Flash based memory is because of its small size limited though. You have 32, 64 and 128 MB and while most people feel that two hours of music you get with 128 MB is more than enough some need more out of their portable MP3 player.
Hard drive-based MP3 Players
Having a hard drive based MP3 player has both its pros and cons over flash memory based MP3 players. Pros are that as hard drives have developed and gotten smaller you can have as much music you want to on them as there are 40 GB portable MP3 players available and they will only get bigger. Although II don’t understand if we really need that much?
Cons are obviously that hard drive based MP3 players are bigger that flash MP3 players and a lot more sensitive to motion so they aren’t much for jogging.
MP3 CD Players
Having a MP3 CD player is also an option and with more than 600 MB of music most will be satisfied. Obviously to fully use this option you would need a CD writer so you can make your own CDs. CD portable MP3 players are obviously largest portable MP3 players available.
MP3 Player Connections
What kind of connection you use to transfer your MP3 files to your MP3 player is a very important factor you need to take into account when deciding what mP3 player you should buy. There are four kinds of connections – serial, parallel, Universal Serial Bus (USB) and FireWire. They are written from the slowest to the fastest connection.
USB and FireWire are to prefer and one of them is available in most of the recent computers.
USB Connection
With USB you can transfer extremely fast depending on what version of USB you have 1.1 or 2.0. 2.0 is faster but you should do just fine with 1.1.
FireWire Connection
Usually FireWire isn’t available on PCs by default but is available on Machintosh computers. It’s the fastest connection currently available.
MP3 Player Storage
The most important thing to consider when buying a portable MP3 player is storage. What kind of memory a MP3 player uses is vital to how you’re going to be using it and how much music you can listen to. Portable MP3 player storage can utilize internal memory cards (much as digital cameras) as FLash, hard drives to store music and CDs.
Flash memory-based MP3 Players
Portable Flash memory based MP3 players are small and extremely light so they’re great to have with you when jogging or lifting weight. Flash based memory is because of its small size limited though. You have 32, 64 and 128 MB and while most people feel that two hours of music you get with 128 MB is more than enough some need more out of their portable MP3 player.
Hard drive-based MP3 Players
Having a hard drive based MP3 player has both its pros and cons over flash memory based MP3 players. Pros are that as hard drives have developed and gotten smaller you can have as much music you want to on them as there are 40 GB portable MP3 players available and they will only get bigger. Although II don’t understand if we really need that much?
Cons are obviously that hard drive based MP3 players are bigger that flash MP3 players and a lot more sensitive to motion so they aren’t much for jogging.
MP3 CD Players
Having a MP3 CD player is also an option and with more than 600 MB of music most will be satisfied. Obviously to fully use this option you would need a CD writer so you can make your own CDs. CD portable MP3 players are obviously largest portable MP3 players available.
MP3 Player Reviews
Flash memory-based MP3 Players
Flash memory-based MP3 players use extremely small memory cards so they’re small and light gadgets. You can take them with you everywhere without any hassles or restrictions. As they’re small they can be great and easy to use while for example working out.
Hard drive-based MP3 Players
Hard drive-based MP3 players should be your number one choice if you can afford them and if you aren’t going to listen to music while jogging.
MP3 CD players MP3 Players
MP3 CD players obviously play MP3 CDs recorded on a CD-R or CD-RW as well as regular CDs. A CD-R or CD-RW media can hold up to about 650 MB of data. That’s a lot of music obviously and far more than majority of Flash memory-based MP3 players.
Flash memory-based MP3 Players
Flash memory-based MP3 players use extremely small memory cards so they’re small and light gadgets. You can take them with you everywhere without any hassles or restrictions. As they’re small they can be great and easy to use while for example working out.
As the Flash memory-based MP3 Players are small there are limitations. For the listener that wants to have more than 1-2 hours of music a Flash MP3 player is not recommended as the memory is extremely expensive and can cost you more than the MP3 player you use.
Also as you’re limited by storage you need to transfer the music from your computer all the time as you’ll get sick of listening to the sames tunes over and over again. IT’s extremely important to get a player with USB or FireWire connections as a slw connection eventhough you aren’t transfering huge amounts of music can be very annoying.
One additional drawback is the batteries Flash memory-based MP3 players use. As they’re extremely small the standard batteries might not fit or they have some custom solution. Don’t expect a lot playing time from your Flash memory-based MP3 players.
Hard drive-based MP3 Players
I must begin by saying that hard drive-based MP3 players are the most expensive MP3 players available and for good reason if you ask me. The HDs these MP3 players run are astonishing as they’re small but can handle up to 40 GB of music. That’s a lot of music I must say.
When looking at their size they’re larger than Flash MP3 players but usually smaller than MP3 CD players. The same thing applies for weight as well. They’re fragile so I definitely recommend getting a MP3 player case.
Hard drive-based MP3 players should be your number one choice if you can afford them and if you aren’t going to listen to music while jogging. Than a Flash MP3 player is to recommend. As mentioned earlier figure out how you’re goint to be using your MP3 layer and make a decision based on that.
MP3 CD players MP3 Players
MP3 CD players obviously play MP3 CDs recorded on a CD-R or CD-RW as well as regular CDs. A CD-R or CD-RW media can hold up to about 650 MB of data. That’s a lot of music obviously and far more than majority of Flash memory-based MP3 players.
Eventhough MP3 CD players can hold more music than Flash MP3 players there are some drawbacks. You have to burn the music onto CDs. To burn music you need a CD writer (device for copying files onto a CD), CD burning software (software for the CD writer), CD-R or CD-RW media (Empty CDs) and CD ripper and encoder to make your own MP3 files (Software for conversion of music from CD into MP3 format).
Moving around with a MP3 CD player can also be a problem as some skip moments arise although manufacturers are trying to avoid that as much as possible with the antiskip protection.
To sum this up – if you have all the things required to burn CDs and don’t mind doing that from time to time than a MP3 CD player might be a good idea as they’re generally cheaper than hard drive memory-based MP3 players so you can save some money.
Buy MP3 Player
Cheap MP3 Players
As MP3 players are becoming more and more popular the prices have dropped now and there are some great cheap MP3 players you can buy today. Just because MP3 players are cheap doesn’t mean you should buy them based on price alone.
Best MP3 Players
Deciding for one MP3 player and saying it’s the best MP3 player is impossible as there are so many things to take into consideration. A player that I like might be totally wrong for you.
MP3 Players Ratings
MP3 player ratings are very hard to do objectively as I’ve outlined earlier it’s impossible to outline just one single best mp3 player or something like that. It depends on you and how you’re going to use the MP3 player.
Compare MP3 Players
Trying to compare MP3 players can be very hard especially if you’ve decided on what kind of MP3 player you want to buy. When comparing the MP3 players first take into account the price obviously but also take into account the additional features a MP3 player can have.
Best MP3 Players
Deciding for one MP3 player and saying it’s the best MP3 player is impossible as there are so many things to take into consideration. A player that I like might be totally wrong for you. You must take into account how you’re going to be using your MP3 player so you can decide what the best MP3 player for you is.
The most important things to take into account when choosing the best MP3 player are – memory, size and the connection the mp3 player has when connecting to the your computer. Based on how you’re going to be using your MP3 player these factors are important but some will be more important than others.
When it comes to memory, hard drive based MP3 players can hold the most as some of them have capacities of up to 40 GB of storage. Still because they use a hard drive although it’s small they’re pretty large and hard to bear.
As we’ve already come into MP3 player sizes than I must outline that Flash MP3 player are the smallest and are extremely light so you can take them with you anywhere really. So this means that if size is important than the best MP3 player for you might be a Flash MP3 player.
Finally we come to the different connections available and I recommend you take either a MP3 player that can handle USB or FireWire connection as they’re the two fastest connections. If you need a player that can handle a lot of music than the connections are even more important but if you need a FLash MP3 player than the connections aren’t so important as the amount of music you can have on them isn’t a lot anyway.
So to conclude I can’t tell you what the best MP3 player is as it depends on you and how you’re going to be using you MP3 player. Still if I must pick one MP3 player as the best MP3 player than it’s the Apple IPOD that has everything but its major drawback is its price but it’s the best MP3 player on the market according to my opinion.
MP3 Player Ratings
MP3 player ratings are very hard to do objectively as I’ve outlined earlier it’s impossible to outline just one single best mp3 player or something like that. It depends on you and how you’re going to use the MP3 player. Some things might be more important than the others depending on the things outlined above.
The three major things to take into consideration when buying a MP3 player are its size, memory and the connection the MP3 player can handle when connecting to the computer. On those three things I’ve tried to base my MP3 player ratings and I hope you’ll find them useful.
MP3 player ratings rule #1 – MP3 players obviously come in different sizes and you can almost categorize them in sizes based on the memory they use for storage. Flash MP3 players are the smallest out there and are also extremely light. Hard drive MP3 players are bigger than Flash MP3 players but can store a lot more music. CD MP3 players are the biggest portable MP3 players available but can store a lot of music (up to 650 MB) and are usually very affordable.
MP3 player ratings rule #2 – MP3 players come in three main categories when it comes to the way they store MP3 files. Flash MP3 players use internal memory that is very expensive and you can’t store that much really. Hard drive MP3 players can store a lot of music, up to 40 GB of music is an incredible amount of music and the question is really if you need that much? CD MP3 players use CDs and the music is played from them.
MP3 player ratings rule #3 – How MP3 players connect to your computer is more important than you might think. If you have a hard drive MP3 player for example transfering a lot of music with any other conecction except USB or FireWire can be a nightmare. Keep that in mind when buying a MP3 player.
MP3 player ratings are very hard as I want you to think about how important all the factors involved are. I hope you found my MP3 player ratings useful.
Compare MP3 Players
Trying to compare MP3 players can be very hard especially if you’ve decided on what kind of MP3 player you want to buy. When comparing the MP3 players first take into account the price obviously but also take into account the additional features a MP3 player can have. Having a radio can be a great thing and some of the MP3 players come with a radio by default.
To compare MP3 players and do the right choice take into account the three most important factors as well – size, memory and connection.
MP3 player compare rule #1 – MP3 players obviously come in different sizes and you can almost categorize them in sizes based on the memory they use for storage. Flash MP3 players are the smallest out there and are also extremely light. Hard drive MP3 players are bigger than Flash MP3 players but can store a lot more music. CD MP3 players are the biggest portable MP3 players available but can store a lot of music (up to 650 MB) and are usually very affordable.
MP3 player compare rule #2 – MP3 players come in three main categories when it comes to the way they store MP3 files. Flash MP3 players use internal memory that is very expensive and you can’t store that much really. Hard drive MP3 players can store a lot of music, up to 40 GB of music is an incredible amount of music and the question is really if you need that much? CD MP3 players use CDs and the music is played from them.
MP3 player compare rule #3 – How MP3 players connect to your computer is more important than you might think. If you have a hard drive MP3 player for example transfering a lot of music with any other conecction except USB or FireWire can be a nightmare. Keep that in mind when buying a MP3 player.
I’m certain that if you’ve read all the articles on this site you’ll not have any problems choosing and buying the MP3 player that you’ll not regret later on. I hope you’ve found my MP3 player compare page useful.
MP3 Player Accessories
MP3 Player Headphones – Anyone who has ever listened to a walkman or any music device sitting on a bus with bunch of people around and the noise knows how important headphones can be. I find it extremely annoying when the noise around me is almost louder than the music I’m listening to.
MP3 Player Bateries & Chargers – Usually the first thing a new owner of a MP3 player notices is that the batteries that often come with your MP3 player are useless. MP3 players require a lot of resources and as they consume a lot of power you need good batteries. You’ll need batteries that are lasting long and are easy to recharge.
MP3 Player Cases – Having a case for your MP3 player isn’t the first thing you think about when buying a MP3 player but as hard drive-based MP3 players are and can be very fragile having a case for your MP3 player isn’t a bad idea.
MP3 Player Headphones
Anyone who has ever listened to a walkman or any music device sitting on a bus with bunch of people around and the noise knows how important headphones can be. I find it extremely annoying when the noise around me is almost louder than the music I’m listening to. Than I just can’t listen to the music unfortunately. Having a great headphone can help there and now I can just tune out and enjoy the music and nothing else.
There are different types of headphones available and which one you’re going to choose depends on multiple factors you need to take into account so you’re sure you’ve made the right choice and not regret it afterwards.
Based on your personality you have to decide on how large headphones you’re willing to take with you. The larger the headphones are – the better quality of sound you’ll get. There are some exceptions to this as with everything of course.
Take into account that larger headphones take up a lot more space and aren’t as handy as the regular headphones you can just put in your pocket or whatever.
MP3 Player Bateries & Chargers
Usually the first thing a new owner of a MP3 player notices is that the batteries that often come with your MP3 player are useless. MP3 players require a lot of resources and as they consume a lot of power you need good batteries. You’ll need batteries that are lasting long and are easy to recharge.
The answer to all power problems is to use NiMH rechargeable batteries. Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) rechargeable batteries can cope with the high power demands of modern digital equipment like digital cameras. They are also highly suitable for camcorders, any other portable devide like CD/Mini-disc players, GPS systems, electronic musical instruments, servo-driven devices and all other power-hungry devices. This basically means that if your device accepts batteries, they can be replaced with NiMH rechargeable batteries.
Over the last couple of years high capacity NiMH batteries have really developed, especially in the popular AA size which is what most of the Mp3 players use anyway. With NiMH batteries you can listen to your music for hours (obviously it depends on other factors as well) and recharge them up to a 1 000 times without much problems. The cells are ranging from 1 500-2 100mAh, the larger the capacity – the longer run time.
MP3 Player Cases
Having a case for your MP3 player isn’t the first thing you think about when buying a MP3 player but as hard drive-based MP3 players are and can be very fragile having a case for your MP3 player isn’t a bad idea. Having a case protects your MP3 players from unnseccesary scratches and if you’re like me you’ll soon realize how important that can be.
Hard drive-based MP3 players are very cool but are technically very advanced so to say. Imagine that IPOD has a HD of up to 40 GB and some other extreme features that are very fragile and should be taken care of. That’s why I recommend you get a case if you have a hard drive-based MP3 player. The same thing basically applies for a CD MP3 player.
What I really like is that there are a lot of MP3 player cases available so you should be able to find some really cool ones. I especially like the ones you can strap on your belt and carry with you everywhere almost unnoticable and very practical. The essence of this article is basically to warn you of the potential threats to your MP3 player and that with a MP3 player case you can avoid most of the problems so do it! 🙂
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